143. Defining moment

This could be even more of a "big fucking deal", as Joe Biden would say, if the President is able to get effective gun control legislation passed, even more than the Affordable Care Act. Let's back him up all the way. The country needs this.

30. He's not politicizing....

He's telling THE TRUTH in the most gentle, eloquent way imaginable. You can't just mourn and pray and have a moment of silence. You have to acknowledge our mistakes, what we have learned and what we are going to do different. If that involves politics...oh well...

47. He's way smarter than you

He's going to do exactly what is needed: seize the opportunity to address a public health crisis created by the gun manufacturers and their sucker flunkies: he's going to destroy the gun culture that has visited so many senseless massacres upon us, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.

103. Huh? Destroy the gun culture?

107. I was responding to post #47

The poster of #47 says that Obama is going to destroy gun-culture in America. I don't see that as being very likely...One man, four years, destroying a culture that has existed since before American independence?

121. I'm not so sure about the assault weapons.

From what I remember during the last assault weapon ban, the guns being sold weren't much different than the guns that were banned. They didn't have a flash hider or bayonet lug, and they didn't have an adjustable stock, but other than that, they seemed pretty functionally identical.

111. That sounds dangerous

If only .01% of gun owners put up a fight, I imagine that there will be blood shed. BTW, I think you meant "magazines" instead of "clips". Don't worry, it's a common mistake to make. Most clips that I'm aware of only hold 8 or 10 rounds or so, as opposed to magazines which are commonly available to hold 30 rounds.

120. I am thankful I live in Canada

127. I saw a new story on TV, and the gun shops are doing a gang buster business the last few days.

Just great, if 300,000,000 guns for 311.6 million people won't stop the gun violence, what is a few hundred thousand more guns on the streets going to do? That's right, make the situation just that much worse. How stupid can people get? No need to answer that, the news story itself answered that question. "...the gun shops are doing a gang buster business the last few days."

Get ready for the "Obama s gonna take yer guns away campaign", brought to you by your NRA.

124. WHatever. There was a rush on guns and ammo after the election too.

See, the paranoid break from reality that connects every event with "must arm self" is the problem.

At least this time it hopefully will be warranted. Maybe it will be the LAST rush before sanity returns. However, I predict that despite gunloon howling at the moon what comes out will be common sense and will not needlessly abridge rights that don't deal with public safety.

But thanks for re-emphasizing that the real problem is the gun owners and their nonlinear reactions, not the guns themselves.

43. What are you waiting for? It our move now. nt

94. How do you figure.

Unless something changes and the people voted in actually do something. You must remember that over 30-some States are against more gun control basically or interference with their 2nd amendment rights..

88. here`s part of it

54. He said....

A society is judged by how it treats it's children.

Wow....I guess we have to stop saying WE ARE THE BEST COUNTRY IN THE WHOLE UNIVERSE. We aren't...not even close. And if we have to put armed guards in schools...as some suggest...we are truly pathetic.

112. What would be truly pathetic about armed guards for our children?

The president gets to have armed guards for his children. If only those children in Connecticut were able to have even a fraction of that level of protection, I imagine that many, if not all, of them would still be with us today.

65. You could see his grief and anger

67. yes! it is time!

- time to get assault weapons off the streets and out of people's homes - and out of the hands of felons, persons with mental instabilities and awaaaay from children. and this is only the beginning to addressing the issues of violence in our communities.

163. Welcome to DU, hopemountain!

Glad you're here! It is indeed time. Call them what they are - weapons of mass destruction. Call their use domestic terrorism. I mean - how does it make you feel, to think about how many people in any given group - might be packing heat? I think about that every time my kid's band goes out on the road. In any average show, in any average crowd, maybe one in ten, on average, might be carrying a gun into that venue? What happens when something suddenly spins out of control?

71. It was also obvious

from the look on his face that this had better not happen again, and that he never wants to be speaking at another event like this. He shed a tear or two and was visibly upset by the end of it all, especially when he read aloud the names of 20 children at the end.

And recall that he receives multiple death threats each and every day from the RW violence-mongers... it's not like he doesn't have a clue. He looks ten years older than he did four years ago and that would be one of the primary reasons why.

We need to back him, he has just put the ball back in our court. What we need to do is lean on our more localized alleged representatives and insist they vote in favor of the assault weapons ban and whatever else is appropriate and don't take any placating BS from them either. Be polite but stand your ground... pun intended.

81. The look in his eyes before he even stated to speak told me that!n/t

82. i think the american people have had enough...

to many men ,women,and children have been killed in this country by weapons in the wrong hands, background checks are a joke. anyone can buy any amount of weapons at gun shows with the right amount of cash. weapons are sold to gangs across the country by people who make a living selling death on the streets across the country.

thank god for the american people who voted for a president that feels for the children in this country.

95. The NRA needs to join the KKK. The hoods are off...Every Gun Registered !!

100. funny you should mentioned the KKK and guns....

My husband told me that one of his friends at poker recently went to a gun show...this guy is liberal...kind of a hippie... and is not an obnoxious gun owner, just has a few because he lives on a farm. Anyhow, right after he purchased a gun at the gun show, a man came up to him and asked if he wanted some KKK literature. He said he just looked at the man and did not know how to respond, so he said something like "uh, no, how do I know you aren't FBI?" Kind of scary...I am sure he didn't want to piss the guy off in cade he followed him into the parking lot, but how he held back from saying what he really wanted to say is beyond me!

113. Some of us of a certain age and distant memories of the South, remember when George Wallace was

still strutting around. He was kind of the epitome of the shit-kickin' good ol' boys and as I recall, most of them nice folk during the day. It really went underground then. I remember the old grainy black-and-white versions. They say he changed his mind, and I'm willing to grant that perhaps sitting in a wheelchair all those years gave him time to reflect, and perhaps repent.

Shining the light of day more fully on the cultural remnants ... the Preppers and such, will continue to put it away.

110. Ten years to get a complete "Gun DNA System" up and running

Every single gun produced and sold in this country will have to have a barrel "fingerprint" on file, and be registered. Its course will be traced from manufacture to destruction, just as we do with cars. Scannable (bar code) GINs (Gun identification numbers) on the weapon, and the profile for any bullet fired through it on file in a CODIS-like database controlled by the FBI. Tampering with the barrel to change the profile will be a (federal) felony with mandatory minimums, since the only reason to tamper with the barrel would be to commit a murder - like owning or making a silencer. Nobody gets into a target firing facility without scanning their weapons. Violator facilities subject to immediate shutdown. No grandfathering of currently existing weapons: any entrance to a target firing facility will require a scan; current guns can be registered and given a scannable GIN - at the owner's expense. Owners of current weapons are free not to have them receive a scan, but they will not be able to use those weapons in target firing facilities unless they receive a GIN.

Not a single gun leaves the shopfloor without contributing its barrel markers to the database - and the gun manufacturers are responsible for paying for that system's development. You sell the gun? You transfer the registration, scan the bar code, and it goes in the federal database. Your privacy concerns are irrelevant: fuck you...it's a matter of public health. Every single sale requires background check and waiting period. Any gun can be tracked to its current owner in seconds on nationally connected computers. The gun manufacturers pay for the system to be developed and implemented. Additional taxes on every gun sale pays for maintenance.

And all that is only for the guns allowed to be sold. Many of today's guns will be prohibited.

135. I hope so too.

138. How would registration have prevented this massacre?

I'm not against registration, but any bold action has to have the effect of making these mass killings much more difficult. Registration is actually completely ineffective in stopping crimes, because the police are almost always able to identify the weapons used in crimes.

I would support an immediate ban on the manufacture and possession of any magazine for any weapon with greater than 5 round capacity, and only 2 such magazines may be possessed for any particular weapon.

150. He needs to go further:

This weekend should have been an epiphany that indeed we ARE failing our children. On every level.
Health care, safety, education, nutrition, housing, clothing, environmentally .... this should be POTUS' "a ha!" moment to tell the GOP to take their austerity and shove it up their fiscal cliff. He should go all LBJ "Great Society" on them - for all children, not just the white suburban ones - and refuse to back down.

155. Now's the time to write to your senators & rep about gun control legislation.

We have to make it more difficult for mentally disturbed people to get guns. If that means it's more difficult for everyone to get guns, then so be it.

Gun advocates argue that 'guns don't kill people, people kill people,' as a defense to keep from strengthening gun laws. However, these same people don't object to being tested to get a drivers licence & having to renew that license periodically. Why don't they argue that cars don't kill people, people kill people? Cars & guns are both are just tools used by people, but both can also be powerful instruments of destruction.

It shouldn't be easier to get & keep a gun than it is to get & keep a drivers license.